One third of people use 'same password' for every login

One third of people use 'same password' for every login

11th Mar 10:26

A survey by Sophos has found that one third of people use the same password for every login, creating a high security risk for businesses.

This puts firms at risk, according to the survey, because if a hacker finds the password used by those staff - even privately on sites such as Facebook - then he or she may be able to access all of their logins, potentially harming business systems.

IT security supplier Sophos conducted the survey on nearly 700 respondents. The organisation said it was important that users were reminded to choose "unique and multiple passwords" for every login they used.

Just one in five internet users made the effort to use different passwords for each website. Forty eight percent of people have several different passwords, some of which they use on multiple logins.

The ease of cracking passwords was demonstrated by recent security breaches including the compromise of justice secretary Jack Straw's Hotmail account.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: "Once one password has been compromised, it's only a matter of time before the fraudsters will be able to gain access to your other accounts and steal information for financial gain."